How the number is made

Every score on this site is made the same way. It is slow on purpose.

Who plays

Two of us play each game on fresh accounts on a normal live server, with no press access and no free premium currency. The third reads both sets of notes and asks the awkward questions. Minimum three weeks; longer where a game has a round structure worth seeing through.

The four criteria

Criterion	Weight	The question we ask
Time respect	35%	Can you make real progress in a short session? Are timers pacing or pressure? Does it punish a day off?
Fairness	30%	How far does a free player get, and does paying buy convenience or victory? Are prices shown plainly in pounds?
Depth	20%	Is there still something to learn in week three? Do guilds, tribes or associations create real social play?
Polish	15%	Does it load fast, run in the four major browsers and stay readable on a laptop screen?

Each criterion is scored out of ten by both players independently. Where they differ by more than two points we play another week and argue it out. The published number is the weighted average, rounded to one decimal place.

The paid week

After the free period, one of us spends a fixed £20 the way a typical player would and writes down exactly what it bought and how far it moved the account. That week feeds the Fairness score and the "Skip it if" lines.

Re-tests and removals

Games are re-tested when they change their shop, release a major update or when readers report something material. A game leaves the list if it breaks any entry rule, drops below 7.0 or its community shrinks to the point where multiplayer stops working.

Independence

Affiliate links carry the sponsored attribute in the page code. Scores are locked before links are added. Publishers have no editorial input. If you think a review has something wrong, tell us and we will look again.